


Grab on and Hold

by MissMorwen



Series: BuckyNat Prompts [27]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: #BuckyNat Week, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, POV Bucky Barnes, Red Room (Marvel), Tumblr Prompt, i swear i meant this to be a short drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23775505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMorwen/pseuds/MissMorwen
Summary: After the training session is done, he says to their supervisor, “That one will go far if you let her.”She barely looks up from her notebook long enough for him to nod in the direction of the redhead. He is there to train the Widows, not to evaluate them.Or maybe not.A week later, he gets a new assignment: He is told to train the redhead and she quickly becomes his favorite student.*************Buckynat prompt: "I'm cold, and I'm tired, and I just want to be done with whatever this is."
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Series: BuckyNat Prompts [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/438178
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stars_inthe_sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky/gifts).



> Title from This Ain't No Hymn by Saint Saviour

At first, he thinks he has made a mistake, taken a wrong turn on his way to this gymnasium. The facility is unknown to him, after all. Some mix-up has landed him in this room where half a dozen girls are idly stretching. The thing is, you aren’t allowed to make mistakes in his line of work. Mistakes mean punishment. Mistakes get you disappeared. The girls turn to face him as one and he realizes that this is the right room, and these are the Black Widows he’s supposed to train. Their eyes look much older than their bodies. They remind him of soldiers – lower-case s – back from the war in body but not in mind.

After the training session is done, he says to their supervisor, “That one will go far if you let her.”

She barely looks up from her notebook long enough for him to nod in the direction of the redhead. He is there to train the Widows, not to evaluate them.

Or maybe not.

A week later, he gets a new assignment: He is told to train the redhead and she quickly becomes his favorite student.

Her name is Natalia.

She tells him this two weeks after he begins training her. They are alone in the gym, stretching after a long sparring session. She is sitting on the floor, bent nearly double over her legs. Her hair falls over her face almost, but not quite, hiding the way she studies his face for a reaction.

He lets her. He is finding it harder and harder to refuse her anything. Straightening, he offers her his hand and pulls her to her feet when she wraps her calloused finger around his wrist. Marveling at how she never shrinks away from his touch, how she welcomes it instead. “Is that the name your parents gave you or one you were given here?”

“Does it matter? It’s mine now.” She says it with such conviction that he believes her.

Later, when they are tangled together on his bed, the blankets kicked haphazardly off it along with their clothes, she asks the question she didn’t ask when she told him her name.

“I don’t have a name.” It’s not a secret. He has come to terms with it a long while ago.

It’s not pity or disgust that carves furrows in her brow. It’s the rage that he sometimes sees bubbling under her otherwise calm surface when she is given an order that doesn’t make sense. (It’s dangerous, is what it is. It’s rebelliousness and that cannot, will not be allowed here.)

He loves her. He loves her with his body and soul and all the words he whispers in her ear when they are alone together. He loves her until she – along with everything that makes him who he is – is taken from him and erased.

He doesn’t get any of it back until after he has put two bullets in her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After

There is a price to pay for getting himself back and the price is this: Along with his name comes his memories. Not all of them are pleasant.

Bucky remembers Steve and his parents and sweet, stubborn Becca who is now three years in the grave. But he also remembers killing people. He remembers shooting the only two people he has ever loved. He remembers caving Howard’s head in with a punch. He remembers wrapping his hand around Natalia’s throat while she pleads for him to recognize her. Too much blood stains his hands for him to face the survivors.

So, Bucky runs. He runs far and long enough to think that he has left the past behind. But no one can ever do that, least of all him.

Steve finds him. (This is a surprise. He had thought that Natalia would be the one to find him. She can track people down better than most bloodhounds.) Steve finds him and Bucky comes with him because no amount of blood on his hands will ever make him refuse his oldest friend. The closest he will ever come to having a brother.

Afterward, when the fighting is done and the wounds have healed he seeks Natalia out. He knows where she lives, after all. She and Steve are friends and though she makes sure never to spend any time in Bucky’s company, he still sees her from time to time.

So, he goes to the place she calls home and he knocks on the door.

Natalia answers it reluctantly, her hand clutching the open door like she wants to slam it in his face. “What do you want?”

He wants to wrap his arms around her warm body and never let go. He wants to sleep without dreaming about his silver fingers around her throat. He wants to be done with whatever this hell is. What Bucky says is: “You.”

“Don’t,” she says, and the refusal is like a dagger in his gut. The way she turns away twists the knife.

(Death would be a blessing, he thinks, but not one he deserves. Not yet.)

Eventually, she says, “I’m not the girl you fell for.” She says it like it is an apology.

His mouth is dry, but he swallows anyway. “That’s lucky, I’m not that guy.”

Her fingers are a firebrand on his skin when she pulls him inside. Her kiss is his salvation.

Later, when they have talked and talked and talked, Natalia takes Bucky’s hand and laces their fingers together. Silver and pale skin, fitting together like a puzzle.

He loves her. He loves her and the miracle is that she loves him, too. He loves her and she loves him, and no one can ever take that from them.


End file.
